Four Steps From A Startling Discovery To Hope
by luvsbitca
Summary: Sherlock discovers something about Rosie and it kicks off massive changes in his and John's lives. Spoilers for s04e01 – The Six Thatchers


**Title –** Four Steps From A Startling Discovery To Hope  
 **Author –** Moonbeam  
 **Summary –** Sherlock discovers something about Rosie and it kicks off massive changes in his and John's lives.  
 **Spoilers –** Spoilers for s04e01 – The Six Thatchers  
 **Rating –** Teen  
 **Disclaimer –** I don't own anything.  
 **Author's Notes –** I couldn't sleep, it's currently almost 7am – I am going to regret this later. So, I figured just get up and write this sucker.  
This is not Mary-bashing (I really like her so far) so don't even start. This is just a result of some tumblr head-canons I've read and it was stuck in my head and I just needed to get it out before the next episode. I am so bad with titles.

 **Four Steps From A Startling Discovery To Hope**  
by Moonbeam

 **/Rosie\**

Sherlock moved Rosie's chair to the kitchen and pushed it up to his experiments table. "This is a microscope, Watson."

Rosie flung her hand out and Sherlock took it as an offer. He wrapped his hand around her little wrist and squinted down at her.

"Would you care to observe the basic force keeping your body working?" Sherlock pricked Rosie's finger with a clean pin.

She looked up at him with wide eyes and her lower lip dropping. He cocked an eyebrow at her and smeared her finger across the new slide. Then he pushed the finger towards her mouth.

"Suck on that," Sherlock told her. He turned back to the microscope and slid the slide under the lens. He flicked on the screen and fiddled with the focus. "This is your blood."

He showed her everything that was visible under the lens and then dropped a reagent into the blood. He straightened immediately and then turned to look at Rosie with a frown.

Sherlock plucked a hair from Rosie's head and she immediately began crying loudly.

"What?" Sherlock could hear John stand and stumble through to the kitchen. "Rosie?"

"She is crying," Sherlock said, turning and slipping the slid out and sliding it into his pocket.

"Why?"

"She doesn't enjoy science?"

Sherlock stalked past John, plucking a hair as he went.

"Ow," John said, rubbing his head.

"I've got a case," Sherlock told him, swinging on his coat as he walked out of 221B.

 **/Molly\**

Sherlock walked into Molly's office and startled the woman.

"Sherlock!" Molly's voice kicked up at the end in surprise.

Sherlock handed her a bag with two hairs inside. "I need you to run a DNA paternity test."

Molly frowned up at him. "Why?"

"A case."

"You always run your own tests."

"I need you to run this one," Sherlock said.

Molly gathered herself together and stood. "You're not telling me the truth and I cannot justify a test like that without some kind of decent reason."

"I am being sued for paternity," Sherlock offered. "I need to see if the child is, in fact, mine."

Molly's cheeks flushed pink and she took the bag. "You could be the child's father?"

Sherlock tilted his head. "Science is better proof than fact."

"I'll let you know as soon as I have the results."

Sherlock nodded and left her lab.

Two days later, Molly called him back into Bart's.

"You're lying to me," Molly said, handing him a sheet of paper. "You are not a girl and you are not going grey."

Sherlock nodded and looked down at the results on the page in front of him. It confirmed his suspicions and he looked back up at her. "You know."

"John and Rosie?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to do?"

"Wait for her naptime and tell him," Sherlock said, turning around and walking towards the door of the lab.

"Are you sure you should do that?" Molly called, stopping him just through the door.

He turned around and looked at her. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Because you've only just made up with him after Mary's death and this could blow up the peace."

"I know," Sherlock agreed. "But I made a promise."

Molly frowned at him. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"Do you think that John would find it any easier with you there?"

Molly paused and looked at him, surprised he seemed to truly be contemplating the question. "No," she admitted – it wouldn't make it easier with anyone there.

Sherlock turned and walked out of Bart's.

 **/Sherlock\**

John stared at the paper in front of him and then scrunched it up and threw it at Sherlock's head.

"John?"

"Why would you tell me this?" John demanded. "How dare you-"

"You said no more lies," Sherlock cut in. "You specified that omissions were also unacceptable."

"Why did you even suspect that this was possible?"

"I was showing Rosie her blood under the microscope and when I added the reagent it showed her blood type as B."

"I'm A."

Sherlock nodded.

"And Mary was O."

"I knew that, B is impossible. So I took some of her DNA and some of yours. I got Molly to run the test so that you would not question the validity of the results."

"You didn't think I would believe you?"

Sherlock turned and walked over to the couch, stepping over the coffee table, and settling on the opposite corner to Rosie. "I do not see the problem. This is just fact. You are not related to Rosie by blood but you are her father. I do not share blood with her either and yet I am helping to raise her."

John looked between Sherlock and Rosie. Sherlock turned and looked at Rosie unsure what John was looking for – she looked back at him.

"You're going to help raise her?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, looking back at John.

"You want to help me raise my daughter?"

"Yes, John," Sherlock said slowly. "Unless you no longer wish for me to assist you in this endeavour."

"When did we agree to this?"

Sherlock looked at Rosie. "Watson, your father is being slow, note how I did not call him an idiot – this is for your benefit, not for his."

"Sherlock, when did we talk about you helping me to raise Rosie?"

"When you forgave me."

"We didn't discuss this."

"Yes, you forgave me and allowed me to hold Rosie while you slept."

"And that was an agreement to raise her together?"

"Exactly, I'm glad you've caught up. Now to move you both back in here."

John gaped at him. "Here?"

Sherlock leaned over and collected Rosie into his arms. "Watson, let's go check out your new room."

"We only have two bedrooms."

Sherlock walked towards the stairs. "She can have your old room."

"And I will…"

"Take mine, sleep isn't necessary," Sherlock said.

"Yes it is," John argued. "You need to sleep."

Sherlock shook his head. "Watson, when you grow up I hope you are not deluded about your body's functions like your father."

"We are going to teach her to respect her body and her need to eat, sleep, and to keep her body and mind healthy."

Sherlock made a face at Rosie and kept walking up the stairs to John's old bedroom. He pushed open the door and stepped into the middle of the room.

"It's green," John commented dumbly.

"Watson likes green."

"Are you going to call her Watson forever?"

"That's her name."

"Her name is Rosie."

Sherlock shook his head. "Are you sure?"

 **/John\**

"Are you sure you want me to come?" John asked.

"I'd be lost without my blogger," Sherlock told him.

"You didn't need me as much before…before…you got Mary to help a lot before and she was better at this after all."

"No, she wasn't."

"You told me she was."

"John," Sherlock said, voice telling John the other man was questioning his intelligence. "Surely you know this."

"Know what?"

"I did not see Mary as a substitute for you," Sherlock said. "You chose to share your life with her. In order to continue to work with you I invited her into what we do. You had chosen another life and that was how I could stay in your new life."

Sherlock opened the taxi door, flicked up his collar and stepped out of the taxi as though he hadn't said anything monumental, leaving John to pay. The older man blinked at his companion's back for several minutes.

"Are you paying or going somewhere else?" The taxi driver asked.

John startled and then paid the man without really paying attention to what he was doing. He walked into the crime scene and stood in the doorway while Sherlock talked at him.

"You were especially helpful in there," Sherlock praised as they rushed from the crime scene. "Why?"

"Why what?" John asked.

"Why were you so helpful?"

"Because that's what I do."

"No, you normally tell me off before you're helpful."

"Sherlock," John cut in. "What did you mean that I had chosen another life?"

"You chose a life with Mary."

"You weren't here when I met her."

"And you chose Mary."

"What did you chose?" John asked, half afraid to know the answer.

"You."

"What?"

"I chose you." Sherlock said plainly.

"So, you asked Mary to help you-"

"Us." Sherlock corrected.

"Help us because you chose me and you think I chose her instead."

"Yes."

"But you chose your work."

"And I share my work with you," Sherlock said, turning down an alleyway.

"Sherlock," John said, stopping still in the middle of the alley. "You told me you were married to your work."

"Yes."

"But you shared your work with me?"

"Yes, do keep up, John."

"Are you telling me that you…help me here, Sherlock, I don't understand."

"Yes, you do," Sherlock said brusquely. "You don't want to understand. You don't feel the same way."

"I did," John said. "But you told me it would never happen."

Sherlock nodded. "Then you did and I do and we have a case."

John's body collapsed down into his compact soldier shape and he nodded. "Let's go."

Sherlock led him out and they chased their villain until he was in custody and they were heading back to Baker Street a little more brine-smelling than when they had started.

"Since you believe it is imperative. John; shower and sleep and I shall care for Watson."

John turned on the stair above Sherlock and looked at him. John reached out a hand and caught the back of Sherlock's neck. He pulled the consulting detective into him and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. He had intended to leave it like that but instead Sherlock's hands settled firmly on his hips and yanked him more tightly into the larger man's body and deepened the kiss until John pulled away breathless. Sherlock let him go entirely and stepped back to a lower step.

"I chose you a long time ago, Sherlock." John explained after a moment of silence broken only by the sound of them breathing.

"But…"

"But," John interrupted, not wanting to discuss the time in between, his time with Mary, not right now in this moment of finally, and possibilities, and…Sherlock and John. "Let's go on a date."

"Finally," Mrs Hudson said from below them. "I'm happy for you boys but you smell."

"I'm showering," John said, turning and walking the rest of the way up to their apartment.

Mrs Hudson walked up the lower level of stairs to stand next to Sherlock. She pressed a hand into his shoulder. "I'm sure he won't hurt you, Sherlock, but you be careful with that heart of yours."

"Too late, Mrs Hudson."

"I know," she said wistfully. "Much, much too late."

"And finally," Sherlock said, turning to her with a hopeful smile. "I'll be down to collect Watson after my shower."

"Yes, dear," she said, standing still while he bounded up the stairs.

 **The End**


End file.
